Area code 246 is the telephone

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

in the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1 and has the international callin ...

(NANP) for

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...

. Telecommunication services in Barbados are regulated by the

Government of Barbados The Government of Barbados (GoB), is a unitary parliamentary republic, where the President of Barbados represents as the head of state and the Prime Minister of Barbados represents as the head of government. Structure The country has a bicame ...

's telecommunications unit. The number ''246'' spells ''BIM'' on an alpha-numeric telephone keypad, a

nickname A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...

for the island. Due to a long established affiliation with the NANP,

telephone number A telephone number is a sequence of digits assigned to a landline telephone subscriber station connected to a telephone line or to a wireless electronic telephony device, such as a radio telephone or a mobile telephone, or to other devices f ...

s in Barbados are often styled as ''(246) NXX-xxxx''. International standards, such as

E.123 E.123 is an international standard by the standardization union (ITU-T), entitled ''Notation for national and international telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and Web addresses''. It provides guidelines for the presentation of telephone numbers, e ...

, advocate the inclusion of the prefix ''+1'' to indicate ''246'' is a part of the NANP.

History

Area code 246 was created in a split of

area code 809 Area codes 809, 829, and 849 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the Dominican Republic. As all NANP members, the Dominican Republic uses country code ''1'', and has similar dialing procedures for dialing the ...

, which was the original area code for most of the Caribbean. Permissive dialing was possible from 1 July 1996 to 15 January 1997 at which time all calls placed to Barbados required the use of the prefix ''1 246'' prefix.

Dialing procedures

To Barbados

*; From within North America (NANP) When calling Barbados from elsewhere in the North American Numbering Plan (e.g. from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

), callers dial as if undertaking regular

ten-digit dialing Ten-digit dialing is a telephone dialing procedure in the countries and territories that are members of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It is the practice of including the area code of a telephone number when dialing to initiate a telep ...

within those countries. Callers must simply dial +1 246 seven digit

phone number A telephone number is a sequence of digits assigned to a landline telephone subscriber station connected to a telephone line or to a wireless electronic telephony device, such as a radio telephone or a mobile telephone, or to other devices f ...

. *; From outside NANP When calling to Barbados from outside the NANP (e.g. from the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

), callers must dial their international dialling prefix followed by 1 to access the North American Numbering Plan. For example, a call placed from the United Kingdom would be dialled as 00 + 1 + 246 + local seven digit phone number. Failure to include the prefix "1" results in accessing

country calling code Country calling codes or country dial-in codes are telephone number prefixes for reaching telephone subscribers in the networks of the member countries or regions of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The codes are defined by the ...

246 of

British Indian Ocean Territory The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia. The territory comprises the seven atolls of the Chagos Archipelago with over 1,000 ...

(''

Diego Garcia Diego Garcia is an island of the British Indian Ocean Territory, a disputed overseas territory of the United Kingdom. It is a militarised atoll just south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean, and the largest of the 60 small islands o ...

'').

Within Barbados

When placing a

phone call A telephone call is a connection over a telephone network between the called party and the calling party. First telephone call The first telephone call was made on March 10, 1876, by Alexander Graham Bell. Bell demonstrated his ability to "tal ...

from Barbados, also known as HPNA, callers simply use seven-digit dialling (i.e. dialling the last seven digits of the phone number). Unlike in some other

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

islands, most residential

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

subscribers have unlimited/un-metered rates for calling other local landlines. *;To North America (NANP) When calling to other places in the North American Numbering Plan, calls are dialed as if undertaking regular

in those countries. Callers must simply dial 1 + NPA (area code) + seven digit

. Though usually toll-free when dialled from the US, not all 1-800, 1-888, 1-877, or 1-866 are toll-free when being dialled from Barbados, and may be treated as a toll call. If the number is not toll-free a recording will give directions of how to place a fee based call. *;To areas outside the NANP When calling to areas outside the NANP (e.g. the

), callers dial 011 +

+ phone number. In the case of the UK, a user would dial 011 + 44 + area code + UK phone number.

Emergency calls and services

:Police Force: 211, Ambulance: 511, Fire: 311 :Information/Directory Assistance: 411 :Operator: 0

Central office codes

In the NANP telephone format ''1-NPA-NXX-xxxx'', the central office codes fall in the position of NXX. In 1996 the following central office numbering plan was put in place by the incumbent local exchange carrier.

Mobile operators

Following liberalisation of the telecommunications industry in Barbados, various central office codes were implemented for local mobile carriers. The following COs were outlined in 2004 by the Minister of Energy and Public Utilities. In most cases Barbados numbers beginning with the following central office codes do not permit incoming

collect calls The collect ( ) is a short general prayer of a particular structure used in Christian liturgy. Collects appear in the liturgies of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches, among othe ...

. This list was updated to include allocations for Ozone Wireless from 2014.

VoIP providers

:310 - 359Barbados Voice over Internet Protocol Policy
(VoIP), Barbados Min. of Finance, Investment, Telecommunications and Energy (MFIE) - Telecommunications Unit

Geographic

Other landline central office codes which have been activated include the following: :227, 228, 229, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 292, 367, 410, 412, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 431, 432, 433, 434, 435, 436, 437, 438, 439, 736, 737, 753, 757, 958, 976

References

External links

The Barbados Telecommunications Unit
- In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade & International Business
North American Numbering Plan AdministratorList of Central Office exchanges from 246 Area Code
{{DEFAULTSORT:Area Code 246 Communications in Barbados Telecommunications in Barbados

246 __NOTOC__ Year 246 ( CCXLVI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar, the 246th Year of the Common Era ( CE) and Anno Domini ( AD) designations, the 246th year of the 1st millennium, th ...

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